Together, We Fight
by EnglandBabe1997
Summary: Hansel and Gretel through the years.
1. Witch One, Candy Land

**This will be a series of one-shots depicting Hansel and Gretel from nine and eleven until the events of the movie x Please read and review xx**

The first witch is the one in the candy house. They haven't met one before, only told stories of the nightmares under the bed, the witches that cast evil magic and torment children.

And torment them she has. She has locked them up in cages and chained them to walls, and force fed them _candy_ (which is not nearly as nice as it sounds).

When they had the chance, right before Hansel was killed, they'd finally fought back, throwing her into the furnace and listening to her screams.

They sounded sweeter than the candy.

They were a little disturbed at first, nine and eleven, smeared with blood and listening to a person's dying screams with relish, but she wasn't a person. Not really.

She was an evil monster.

Hansel and Gretel have had their eyes well and truly opened, and Gretel thinks they'll stay that way.


	2. Witch Two

The second witch that dies, though they don't know it for fifteen years, is their mother. They didn't know she was a witch at the time, and they hadn't exactly been with her, but it was their fault she died nonetheless.

She died to protect them.

Their father wasn't even there the protect her because he was out on the forest, leading his children deeper into the darkness of the woods and leaving them there.

When he returns it is to an empty house, an angry mob and a flaming pyre.

He accepts the hangman's noose for him, because his wife is dead and his children are safe. Or at least he hopes they are, and he already knows he has no way of finding out otherwise.

Hansel and Gretel do not return home for fifteen years, and even then it is only by accident.


	3. The Forest One

After they kill the witch in the candy house they don't know what to do.

They don't know which way home is, and they don't want to go that way anyway.

So they leave the candy house, without looking behind them, and they can still hear the screams of the witch behind them. Together, they walk deeper into the forest, not knowing where they are going or where they are headed.

They don't know what will happen to them, what will come tomorrow.

They know they have been abandoned by their parents and left for dead and tortured and enslaved.

They know that they are free.

They know they could die tomorrow.

But, for now, they have each other. As the forest darkens into night once again they take each other's hand so they don't let go in the darkness. And they walk through the forest together.


	4. Village One, Knives And Teeth

The first town they come across is suspicious, but not too much so. They are still children after all, even if they are filthy and their clothes are blood stained. What harm can children do?

The villagers believe that, that they are harmless - that the blood is their own, a remnant of some tragedy they had suffered.

They don't believe they are any danger.

They don't believe them when it comes to the witch.

Neither Hansel nor Gretel are particularly surprised. Adults saw what they wanted to see, not what is really there. They are blind.

They are just children.

And that's what the villagers believe until one man goes to hit Gretel for disrespect and he has a knife driven through his back, from Hansel, and a broken nose and all his teeth knocked out, courtesy of Gretel.

Once again covered in blood, the siblings walk on.


	5. Village Two, Omens

The next village they arrive at is barely a few metres down the road, far enough for rumours about two blood splattered children to spread telling tales of witches.

They don't stay there long, because within twenty four hours there are rumours spreading again about the two siblings that seem not to been seen without blood coating their clothes.

People draw away when they see them. like they are some sort of omen. Parents told on tighter to their children, because Hansel and Gretel look far more serious than any child has the right to be and the parents seem to worry that it's contagious.

They are still children though, and they can't live like this, with all the fear and suspicion and hatred. They disappear into the forest again and it is becoming something like home.


	6. Village Three, Tricks Of The Trade

The third village is farther away, much farther. It is more than far enough for Hansel and Gretel to come up with a few stories that explain their state without involving witches. These stories play up to get the most sympathy, because no matter how little they now care, they do need help, and desperately.

They need someone to sympathize because they are on their own, and they can't manage that quite yet. Maybe in a few years.

So when they enter that village it's under the guise of being two children wandering in the forest after witnessing their parents' murders, orphaned and homeless. It explains the nightmares both of them get, and the village does exactly as it is supposed to.

An elderly woman takes them in and is kind to them.

They are equally as kind to her and then go behind her back to learn the tricks of the trade from the local gang.

When she dies three years later, the siblings have learnt everything there is from the other youths.


	7. The Forest Two

They go into the forest again. They need to find somewhere new, somewhere that they aren't known.

They have learnt what it is to be an orphan and they've learnt how to be stronger than that, two helpless children. They've learnt how to beat the monsters that lurk in the dark.

The forest is dark and cold, but not scary. In their time with the old woman, they'd been in the forest often enough, mainly at night when she was sleeping. They would crawl out of their window and disappear into the darkness, learning the best way to stab someone in the back before they got you.

They haven't killed yet, not since the witch, but they will soon, and both of them know it.


	8. Witch Three, The Hunt

They live on the streets after that, fighting their way into the criminal underworld of the area, until they have proven their worth. Each time they pick up more and more tricks, adding to their collection, until they are faster and stronger than they could have ever imagined.

They are strong enough to fight back.

That is when the witch hunting starts. In one village there are rumours of a witch lurking at the edge of the forest, abducting children and killing people foolish enough to venture into the woods.

Gretel pretends to be just another little girl foolish enough to stumble into the darkness.

They aren't surprised when the witch comes up from behind, and tries to lure her deeper.

They aren't surprised at the witch's strength or speed.

The witch is surprised that two children are enough to match her, and this costs the witch her life.

The hunt has begun.


	9. Witch Six, Impervious

At each town they pick up more and more tricks until there are none left for them to learn. Instead they learn the best way to kill a witch, mainly through trial and error. It's a good thing that they are impervious to their magic though, or else they would be dead - and both Hansel and Gretel know it.

They learn it through a swamp witch, one who tries to move the pondweed to choke them and drown them.

The few moments surprise at her failure is her death, even though the siblings are equally surprised. But they know better than to think of that right now, it is something to consider for later.

It is only their sixth witch.


	10. Saved

They like the hunting, though neither of them really know why. Maybe it is saving children who aren't as lucky as they are, as strong. They save those children from a fate worse than death, and maybe that's what appeals to them.

They don't think so though.

They enjoy the hunt, the kill. The make the witch bleed and bleed hard, and then chop off her head and dangle it from the mouth of her cave. And that isn't for the children. That is for themselves - for their own revenge, for the innocence they lost.

They fight for themselves and if they save someone else in the crossfire then that's great, but not exactly what they meant to do.


	11. Sugar Sickness One

It takes a few years for the scars to show. Their bruises and petty cuts fade easily, healed over in a matter of days and weeks.

There are some injuries that don't go away, the scarred skin around their wrists from the manacles and a few other scars, tiny in comparison to what they have received from other witches.

They are proud of those scars though. They are reminders of what they have fought, have they have survived, how they _keep_ on surviving, even as everyone else dies. These scars are as much a memento as anything else, only a rather more permanent one.

There is only one mark that they do not like to see, and it isn't even visible.

It is the one constant reminder of their suffering at the witch's hand, and it took at few years to show up - and neither of them are sure why.

They know why it happens though.

That much candy isn't good for anyone, even a child.


	12. Sugar Sickness Two, The First Time

**I don't know very much about this, so please excuse all medical and personal accuracy :) But read and review anyway...**

The first time it happens neither of them know what is going on. Luckily they are still young enough to look like children, scarred though they are, that some passer-by is willing to help them.

The woman takes one look at Hansel and helps Gretel to walk him to the town healer. She shouts some things to him, none of which either of them understand, but all of which they will become intimately familiar.

Gretel is the closest to tears she's been since their parents abandoned them, watching her brother spasm his way to unconsciousness.

It isn't until they inject him with something and he stops twitching that she calms down, and that's only because he stayed awake long enough to look her squarely in the eye and promise he wasn't going to go anywhere.


	13. Witch Seven, Stories

The next witch is a swamp witch. She tries to drag them down into the mud and her filth. She tries to drown them, strangle them, suffocate hem, skewer them.

She doesn't succeed.

All she does is teach Gretel the best angle at which to decapitate a witch and Hansel that you can drown one and not have to bother with burning.

It turns into a bit of a lesson when they find out that they were followed by a boy from the village. he turns green as they demonstrate and runs back home.

Hansel and Gretel don't even bother trying to go back to the village.

And that is the day the first story is told about two children that can slay a witch.


	14. Story Time One

The stories just continue from there, the tales getting wilder and wilder, and less and less truthful. It gives them a reputation anyway, and these days all they have to do is step into a town and the villagers take one look at the two, their weapons and how much blood they are covered in, and point them in the direction of the local witch.

Sometimes it's good. Because they can get down the business fast, and not have to worry about the annoying idiots who complain about 'children' doing a man's job. If that's the case, why haven't they done it already?

And sometimes it's annoying, because sometimes they just want to be left alone.


	15. Witch Thirteen, Learning

They kill their eighth witch, their ninth witch, their tenth.

They learn ever creative ways to do so.

And they keep moving, almost never returning to the same place twice. The stories spread and spread, of the two witch hunters, aged fifteen and seventeen.

The witches start to learn.

The thirteenth witch learns that they are impossible to beat, so she tries running. All of the others are too proud for that, so it almost works.

Until Hansel and Gretel get over their surprise and catch up to her.

At last, something different.

The witches are learning.

And that makes the hunt much more interesting.


	16. Witch Thirty, Lucky

Then it's the fifteenth witch, the seventeenth, the twentieth, the thirtieth.

That's more witches than anyone else has ever managed, especially for two people so young. Gretel isn't even an adult yet, and Hansel is only just barely.

They don't know how they get so lucky, managing to escape even the most desolate of situation with barely more than a few scrapes, or maybe a broken finger, and without serious injury. They don't get hurt, not since the first witch.

They are lucky.

But one of these days that luck is going to run out, and they both know it.


	17. Sugar Sickness Three, Close Call

One day Hansel doesn't get his injection on time and Gretel is forced to watch him writhe around on the floor as she runs for it to give him.

He isn't screaming, but grunting and breathing heavily, his face whiter than she's ever seen it. It only takes her a few seconds the find the injection, but they are precious seconds indeed added to by the time it takes her to reach his side.

His hands are cold and clammy but she takes on in hers as she injects him and refuses to look away until there is colour in his cheeks again.

This close call wasn't even the fault of a witch.


	18. Witch Forty Two, Injured

It's routine now, and it's almost boring. They love the thrill of the chase, not this never ending boredom that chases them round like dogs and their tails.

They wish for something more interesting to happen.

And then they wish that they hadn't.

Because the next witch they encounter manages to seriously injure Gretel, the first one to manage it yet. Hansel is sort of impressed, if his sister hadn't been injured and the witch hadn't gotten away.

He waits for Gretel to heal, though it takes six weeks and lots of pain medication and he holds the hand the whole time. He is there when she wakes up in pain, and when she stirs in her sleep.

And when she is healed they find the witch and burn her.


	19. Village Sixty Seven, Admirers

In one village there is a man who takes a liking to Gretel and doesn't appear to understand the word no. Instead he gets his nose broken, along with his deep scratches, elbow, three of his fingers and a toe.

In another village there is a girl, about Gretel's age, who likes to follow Hansel around. She follows him everywhere but Hansel doesn't like hitting women that aren't witches so it is Gretel who yanks her hair out and knocks out two of her teeth.

They are both fed up of admirers, and deal with them as efficiently as possible.


	20. Saved, And Killed

They don't often kill humans. Most of the time they're the ones saving them from death by witch. In fact, the first time they do so, it's not in the pursuit of a witch at all. It's one very persistent young man who has taken a fancy to Gretel and gets a shotgun through his head when he attempts to get into their room at three o'clock in the morning.

It quickly dissuades other attempts.

After that it seems to happen - not often, but occasionally. There are always humans that are going to get in their way, who believe that Witch Hunting should be left to the professionals and then get killed in the crossfire.

The siblings refuse to let it bother them.


	21. Witch Fifty One, Retirement

By witch fifty, they've killed more than anyone else has, and they're _bored_.

Gretel thinks she might retire, if such a thing is possible.

Hansel can't help but be amused by the idea of Witch Hunters retiring, as little as he can believe they became Hunters in the first place.

Witch fifty one is a river witch and it only takes some masterfully placed pondweed, Gretel in a wig and an axe before she's taken care of.

Right now retirement seems more interesting. Maybe they'd actually do something then.

Gretel kind of gets the impression that trouble follows them everywhere, regardless of the Hunting.


	22. Witch Fifty Six, Laughing Mad

The witch before they are asked to visit some strange town they've never heard of laughs as they catch her. Some of them have before, but that is a laugh of defeat, of incredulity that they have been caught by two young humans.

This is a laugh of utter amusement, something unhinged and strange beyond what Hansel and Gretel have seen before. They have seen witches lose it at the end, but this unsettles them move than anything has in a long time and they can't quite pin-point why.

The witch is still laughing when they behead her.

Hansel takes his sister's hand and knows that soon everything is going to change.


	23. The Forest Three, Monsters In The Dark

This walk through the forest seems darker than it has it years. For once the pair hold hands, like they haven't since they were in their teens and needed to prove to themselves that they could cope.

This walk is different to the others, strange and unsettling.

The forest is dark and the trees are shadowed, more monsters than usual lurking in the dark. These monsters aren't the witches or themselves, but odd memories that keep springing to the surface with every step they take.

Everything is going to change, they know that. They've learned to trust their senses.

They just don't know how yet.


	24. Village Seventy Two, Same As Usual

When they arrive at the village it's much the same as any other they've visited. The villagers are taking their fears out on an innocent red head whose only crime is to be pretty enough for the other petty women in this town to accuse her of witchcraft.

They meet the usual disbelievers, the usual people who believe this should be left to the 'professionals' that are more likely to get killed than either Hansel or Gretel. They met the fanboys as well (and surprisingly there's only one fangirl in this village, the red head who seems to feel she owes them something for saving her life, or maybe she's just naturally creepy).

Both of them start to wonder if their instincts are starting to lead them astray, something that is not at all good for a Witch Hunter, never mind these two.

There doesn't seem to be anything odd about this case as well.


	25. Just Another Hunt

They are very, very wrong. There are plenty of things wrong with this town, none the least that the girl doesn't seem to want to stop stalking Hansel.

It's getting creepy.

As well as that, the witches are behaving in an irregular pattern, taking children in a way neither of them have seen before, and even though it's a pattern that's a challenge to solve, it's not as hard as they first thought.

It's just another Hunt.

The children will be returned home safely, because they are innocent.

The disbelievers will be proven wrong, those that believe they can do it themselves killed.

And the witches will die.


	26. Losing

They were wrong. And that doesn't happen often.

They are encountering witches that can look like normal people, and witches that aren't evil, and basically something that's challenging everything they ever thought about witches.

It's turning their world around - Gretel is a White Witch, their mother was, Hansel has some strange attraction to a White Witch.

They start to think this can't get any weirder, or more bloody. Whilst this isn't as messy as some occasions they've seen, there have been far more deaths than usual.

It's something neither of them like. It's like losing.

And neither of them are good at that.


	27. Change

They do as they usually do.

They kill the witches, take their heads off, burn them to ashes.

Only this time there is a witch killed in the crossfire, one who isn't meant to be. Gretel doesn't understand her brother's newfound attraction to Mina the Good Witch, but she can excuse it. At least it meant the woman wasn't another one of their stalkers.

She wonders how her life came to this. She's used to weirdness - she's been killing witches since before she even hit her teens, but this is a whole new kind of weird.

She doesn't like it.

Things have changed - and change can get both of them killed.


	28. Witch Sixty Two, Self-Hatred

She's a witch. She's one of those things she's spent most of her life hunting, the things she's loathed since before she hit her teens.

She remembers all the horrible things she's seen witches do, all the people they've killed and the pain they've caused.

Her mother was a witch, and she left them to be abandoned in a forest which led to them being trapped in the candy house.

And she is just the same.

Gretel feels the self-loathing rise to the surface, the hatred for what she is. It's unhealthy, to hate herself even more than she does already, but she can't help it anyway.


	29. Instincts

All in all this hunt has gone exactly as her instincts had first warned her.

Awfully.

She knew she should've paid more attention to them - she usually does - but even she can underestimate a situation.

So instead she's walking out a Witch, completely changed ideas about her parents in her head and power surging beneath her fingertips, running through her veins. Her brother holds her hand at her side, almost tense, and she can't decide whether or not it's because of the Witch thing or the Mina thing, neither of which she's going to bring up now.

Not now, because they have another hunt.

Hopefully this one isn't as bad as the one they're leaving behind.


	30. Never The Same

**I think this is the last chapter for this story - I hope you like it x**

Their hunts never go the same after that. There's always Ben and Edward, tagging along behind, and Gretel casting the occasional spell when he thinks she can get away with it. There's Hansel, more compassionate than ever, and sadder than ever too.

Gretel thinks it might last like that forever.

But it doesn't - they move on, slowly, and the pain starts to heal, the wounds scabbing over. All pain leaves in the end.

And they carry on hunting, the killing, the witches, even now that they know the truth. Because even if good witches are out there, there are bad ones as well.

And they both know how that goes.


End file.
